Non-visible stats

When we check out basketball games, we can do it on a quantitative or on a qualitative basis. So we split any tangible aspect from intangibles. The stats properly named, from every other factor non-computable with numbers but that also will be necessary to take into account later: the only way to analyze qualitatively is to sit down and watch the corresponding post-game video. There's no other choice.

So let's focus in the stats for a while. We know already which ones are the statistical sections, we don't need to mention them again.

Let's make an internal division to this issue. The combination of different numbers tells us such offensive or defensive capability, but also it points us clearly which factors contribute to build or to destroy gameplay.

In order to know exactly which combinations are those who reflex concrete information about a player's or a team's performance, we will need to discriminate first which stats are considered a hundred percent visibles from those who are not.

Points, field goals made, free throws made and attempted and committed personal fouls are considered 100%-visible input variables, on a basis the situations we assign them leaves no room for any speculation. The points and the personal fouls necessarily are shown in the scoring board, and the only way to assign free throws attempted is when the player shoots them from the line. Those are the so-called basic statistics, which years ago (before the turning point in each league) was all that was computed.

All the remaining items are not 100% visible: assists, steals, turnovers, blocks (such for and against), received fouls (when the player who received it doesn't go to the free-throw line), and offensive and defensive rebounds, this is, everything that is subject to controversy. There are certain game situations in which us, as statisticians, assign more than a statistic to a specific player in a specific situation.

For example: the attacking player A shoots. There's a clear and unquestionable will of shooting (the player faces the basket off with the arms in shooting position), and the ball moves towards the basket above the shoulders line in a clear parabola, at least in its rising half. Before the ball reaches its apex, a defensive player D in a jumping effort catches the ball with both hands. We discuss here if player A must be granted with a field goal attempt and a turnover, and if player D is granted with a rebound, also with a steal, an even with a block. Those criteria vary depending on the parameters we apply, if there are NBA, FIBA or NCAA parameters.

NBA, a machine to generate statistics

Unlike the FIBA game or NCAA game, where the main value is the team play, in the NBA we play exclusively for the individualities. The reason is quite simple. NBA franchises move a lot of money, with astronomical budgets, and players are contracted by stratospheric amounts of money which increase every year. And the team owners logically require their investments generate dividends, in short, that produce numbers. It is simply a business.

In the NBA there's a golden rule that when an external player is wide open and gets the ball, automatically shoots. The star player should produce numbers no matter what, and the more field goals the better. Until not many years ago zone defense was forbidden, and that's because in a man to man defense there's more space and therefore more likely to occur 1 on 1 situations (seen from the other side, it's highly proven at FIBA level that zone defense is a synonym for collective defense, but also a gameplay destruction factor). In NBA and NCAA you can't catch the ball when it's above the rim's cylindrical plane, which means more points or rebounds.

There are specific situations of the game in which NBA assigns rebounds or assists that there aren't such in FIBA. In other words, the NBA generates, whenever is possible, an extra amount of non-visible stats every time the situation merits it to do so. For example, attacking player A shoots. He misses, and attacking player B (a teammate) catches the offensive rebound and scores. I will not refer to what really should be counted in these cases, but I will rely to the facts, that is, to what it is, to what unfortunately we must work when we act under either paradigm. In FIBA, A is credited only with a missed field goal, whereas in NBA A is granted with a field goal and an assist (by the mere fact of being A the author of the last complete ball trajectory within two teammates not interrupted by any player of the opposing team).

Situations like this causes that the ratio of assists per steal be abnormally greater in the NBA rather than FIBA. In general, an external FIBA player averages 2,5 assists per steal, and in theory, in the NBA the relation should be 3 to 1, because 48 min / 40 min = 1.2 ... and 2.5 x 1.2 = 3. But no: in NBA there are historically averages in order to 4.5 assists per steal in the sum of the three perimetral positions, that scandalously increases to 6.5 to 7 to 1 only when we treat with point-guards.